You Are Here

We Got Here Together

We Got Here Together

We Got Here Together

"We Got Here Together," by Kim Stafford, is reprinted by permission of the author from We Got Here Together, by Kim Stafford, illustrated by Debra Frasier, published by Harcourt Brace in 1994. Copyright 1994 by Kim Stafford.

Invite children to act out the story when you read "Now you get settled into bed." Encourage them to imagine the bubble coming from the fish and turning into the sky and the rain turning into the ocean.

Now you get settled in bed, I'll tell you a story.

You get cozy, and I'll start.

Once, in the deepest ocean, there was a little fish.

That fish opened its mouth and let a bubble go.

At the same moment a cloud high over the ocean let a raindrop go.

Way down in the deep that bubble started its journey to the surface, and high in the sky that raindrop started down.

Would you be afraid? I might be afraid. But nothing can hurt a raindrop, nothing can hurt a bubble. They belong where they're going.

For a long time that bubble drifted up through the water without a thought, bumping a seal belly, bouncing off a seaweed leaf, rolling through the blue, floating toward that big ceiling of light.

And the raindrop was spinning dizzy down, sliding along the shoulder of the wind, tumbling toward that silver field of water.

They took so long, falling down and soaring up, they grew. The bubble swelled and filled with light. The raindrop gathered ready and round.

Somehow they were aimed for the exact same moment in time, and they got there together.

Then they were—what were they?

The bubble opened and was the whole sky.

The raindrop opened and was the whole ocean.

There they were—sky and ocean turning right where they belonged.

And you and I?

We got here together, too, didn't we? We got here safe, in the silver light, where we belong.